Consumer devices, such as routers, gateways, smart appliances (e.g., smart washer/dryers, smart thermostats, etc.), or the like, may have various states of operation. For instance, such consumer devices may be in an “operating normally” state, a “starting up” state, or in a state that indicates one or more error conditions. Traditional consumer devices may include display lights and/or play audible beeps in order to indicate the operating state. These traditional techniques for indicating a consumer device's operating state may be potentially burdensome, unclear, or otherwise unhelpful for a user who is trying to determine the operating state.